


lessons.

by cassandor



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Cassian Andor-centric, Cassian Backstory, Fest, Gen, I mean really minor like this is for cassian stans, Minor Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, POV Cassian Andor, the eadu argument
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-09 00:26:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11093082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandor/pseuds/cassandor
Summary: The first fic I ever wrote. Basically explores the Eadu argument from Cassian's POV/ what he was remembering as he spoke.





	lessons.

_“Orders? When you know they’re wrong? **You might as well be a Stormtrooper.** ” _

All of a sudden Cassian is six and he’s not quite old enough to completely grasp the meaning of the words _Confederacy_  and _Republic_ but he’s old enough to have learned that the white shelled figures decending on his planet mean war, mean devastation, mean suffering. He’s never picked up a blaster but he has to fight - war doesn’t know the difference between six, sixteen, and sixty - so it’s rocks and bottles and anything he can find, anything that can dent that white armor, anything that can make a dent in the invasion, anything that he hopes will stop the suffering.

_“We don’t all have the luxury of deciding when and where we want to care about something…”_

Cassian is seven and he’s learned the _Republic_  is gone but the troopers in white aren’t. The _Confederacy_ is gone too, and so are his parents. But his desire to fight for what is _right_  and fight for what he’s _lost_  is not gone. It’s there, burning in his veins, just as much as the suffering is there, brought by the figures in white. He fires a blaster for the first time, scorching that white armor, turning it black. He doesnt know there’s a face behind that armor, a soul under those white plates. He doesn’t care. He hopes it’s dead. He feels like he’s taken down the Empire itself. He hasn’t, not yet, so when the _Rebellion_  calls, he answers.

_“…Suddenly the Rebellion is real for you? Now that you’ve got a stake in it, and now that you don’t have another life to go back to?…”_

Cassian is fifteen and he’s learned that the _Rebels_ work quietly. The fire still pumps through his veins but the things it powers are different. He learned to channel his energy into making different dents in the _Empire’s_ cold white shell, to live under different names, to live different lives, all for the same purpose. Names meant nothing to him. _Clone, stormtrooper, Republic, Empire. Traitor, Liar, Spy, Hero._ The many lives he lived meant nothing, not when he had no life of his own. His life was the Rebellion. The Rebellion was his life. He had nothing more to give.

_“…Some of us live this Rebellion. I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old. You’re not the only one who lost everything…”_

Cassian is eighteen and he’s already learned too much, seen too much, done too much, lost too much. The Rebellion, their goal, their dream, was far bigger than any one person, any one battle, any one sacrifice, any one secret. He had learned too much but not enough - he had not yet learned how to kill without sympathy, to betray without guilt, to move on without regret. But for the Rebellion to live, he would have to learn. He would learn to lose it all. 

_“…Some of us just decided to do something about it.”_

Cassian is twenty six and he’s looking into his scope  _seeing_ for the first time. A newbie stormtrooper would’ve fired by now. The eyes he’s seeing he’s seen before, are Jyn’s eyes, are the eyes of the first informant he ever killed, the first rescuer he left behind, the first person he left betrayed, the eyes of every person whose last possession was hope.  _Rebellions are bigger than any one person, than all of us_. Rebellions are built on sacrifices, on suicide missions, on heartless assassinations and on lost innocence - but Rebellions are also built on hope, on humanity, on compassion, on redemption. May the rifle he tosses aside mark the birth of a new kind of hope. May the life he spares today lead not just to his own freedom, but the freedom of the galaxy. 

_“You can’t talk your way out of this.”_

Cassian is twenty six and he’s learned something new once again. 

_“I don’t have to.”_


End file.
